sorry that i can't believe
by Brannasaurus Rex
Summary: Regret eats away at him like a wildfire, chipping away at his skin. But when she comes back to him over and over again he feels like a new man-scarred and peeling away, but somehow alive. NALU AU Rated M For a lil bit of sexual content..


_(I miss the mornings with you laying in my bed,_

 _I miss the memories replaying in my head,_

 _I miss the thought of a forever you and me)_

There were days when Natsu wondered just how far he would go for the woman riding him like a goddess.

She was golden and breathtaking and pure unadulterated starlight with her eyes clenched shut and her face trembling amidst the throes of passion, and somewhere deep inside of him, he _wanted_ every minute particle that belonged to her.

The physical weight of his glance _burned_ wherever it touched on her skin, and she offered herself as a sacrifice to this pain.

Every stroke, every pulsing breath was written and displayed for him, and that was all she would give him.

"This isn't love," she breathes in his neck.

When she is finished she clambors off of him, breathing heavily and hyper-aware of every move he makes, including the motions he hesitates.

And he knows this is it, this is all she'll spare for him.

He remembers it clearly. He remembers the days when things were so, _so_ much better. Those days when she wrapped herself around him and met each one of his kisses with a daring one of her own.

This Lucy, this _pained_ , _distant_ Lucy is not what he remembers.

She doesn't face him as she pulls that tight-fitting dress over her legs and her back. She pretends to hide the scars that litter the front of her torso, as if he hadn't seen them all millions of times before. He pretends to not notice the tiny semblance of quivering evident in her strong arms.

It hurts, god it _aches_ , but he cannot call her back. He can't whisper endearing, loving words to her blessed backside. There is a wall and he has artfully stationed himself on the other side.

And as she walks out the door he thinks to say, _call me later_ , but he stops himself when he remembers she doesn't plan these intimate moments.

Lucy comes and goes like a turbulent summer storm; one minute she is a raging, turbulent spray, and sometimes she is a gentle, trickling rain. She always disappears too soon, leaving her essence strong and wet before the summer heat evaporates all that she was. But somehow she always comes back and leaves behind the same mark.

The cut in his heart gets deeper and _deeper_ and the guilt is etched into his skin- _and he can't take another moment of this_. He can't even tell her to be safe before she leaves, he can't even tell her how much he wants her to wait for him to find something he is worthy of providing for her.

Because she is _everything_ , she is is holy and clear and bursting.

And he is destructive, he is reckless and stubborn and abrasive and so, _so foolish_.

The tears are threatening to burst at the seams of his eyes and he prays that this won't be the last time she comes to him. Because there's a chance he'll make up for what he's done, maybe he'll be able to one day convince her to stay.

Regret eats away at him like a wildfire, chipping away at his skin. Some nights when he awakes from the tormenting dreams of what could have been, he feels his own scars _bursting_ at the seams.

Once, the skin was unblemished, the skin of a future _father_ , a future husband.

Sometimes he subconsciously rubs the ragged flesh and can almost physically _feel_ the glass sticking ungracefully from his skin, can feel the violent twists and flips of the car and then he can see so vividly _the blood pooling around her thighs_ and he knows, god he _knows_ this is the end.

And later when Natsu remembers the men digging into their car, fighting metal and devastation to recover her from the passenger seat with too much effort, he burns inside. It should have been him being carted away on a stretcher, it _should_ have been him who had been caught into the harshest part of the impact. _God_ , he could've protected her, if only he had made her stay home in that condition.

And he remembers waiting for the doctor to come out of her room and tell him that everything is fine and that _the life they had created together,_ was stronger than he thinks.

The truth still hurts when you find it and you'll wake up asking why you ever searched for it- why you ever let it get a hold of you.

Every day the sting is increased tenfold as she asks in between consciousness and semi-lucidmoments if _their precious little child_ is ok. All he can do is choke on his tears as he stays by her side.

And he remembers losing the proper words to say when he tells her after she finally wakes and Lucy weeps louder than he's ever seen anyone weep and his world is _crushed_ and the seed of guilt sprouts into a fertile plant and there is nothing he can do. He cannot even hold her without feeling dirty himself.

Natsu _cannot hold his fiance while she cries over the death of their child_.

And when people came to offer their service and their sympathies, he leaves. Lucy bears the pain, she bears the silent, tentative, unexperienced words of condolence by herself. He was found later passed out on their front porch from almost drowning in alcohol.

And he was the one who disappeared from the world for a year. With hardly a note and a word of goodbye, he left her there, _alone_ in that big house their family was meant to share.

She never blamed him.

When he came back she didn't weep, she didn't strike him and she _didn't smile_. Perhaps she was as numb as he was, simply going through the motions.

During those times, he felt a cord pulled taut between them, words left unspoken hung heavily overhead like dark, overpowering thunderclouds.

Her fingers would occasionally smooth over the lower expanse of her belly in search of something substantial, but she was no longer flush with life and glowing just as heartily. She was beautiful, but she radiated sadness like a _deadly infection_.

Sometimes she would pick up heavy things and think to herself _she must be careful because of the baby_ , but she always ended up crying on top of the object, though she never let him see her then.

He would try to be just as loving and gentle, but she would push him away, but he felt _hollow_ trying to be anyway.

And like he had ungracefully done a year before, he left without a word. He lasted even less than she did in that house and _it haunted him._

He found a new apartment, a new job, a new life, yet she still found a way to make herself a part of it.

She doesn't speak to him much anymore, but he recalls something she said once, the memory growing stagnant in his mind:

 _"We're_ _not lovers, understand? You and I are just strangers who crave this, who need to feel loved, to feel anything at all."_

She says it because he needs to hear it, not because she wants to say it or believes in it. Lucy believes in showing love by doing things for others and she does this for him. And Natsu knows it so well, he just knows.

Though she is the one who refuses to look at him and speaks little, she is _not the one who is afraid._

He is drifting now, drifting into the dreamland where his nightmares tear away at him each night she comes, but he lets it overwhelm him.

He _gladly sinks_.

He thinks then of the kindness of her skin in the way it brushes his and he prays that it comes back, _prays_ that she comes again to ease the pain.

These nightmares are real and help him stay alive. Although all she misses is his body, it's simply enough. She is enough and he almost gave her up.

And when she comes back to him over and over again he feels like a new man- scarred and _peeling away_ , but somehow _alive_.

And he'll go on _and on_ _and on and on_.

 **A/N: This is an example of the ramblings of a half-decent writer lacking conviction to finish the rest of her work.**

 **I don't even know why I wrote this.**

 **Thank you for reading. Drop a lil note on your way out.**

 **\- Brannasaurus Rex**

 _(Strangers-Halsey)_


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